‘A detainee giving an order to the arresting head of security of the First Chief Directorate!’ said Malik, allowing the incredulity.
‘A mistake,’ admitted Panchenko, collapsing further.
‘Twice you’ve told me there was no further conversation after Agayans asked to dress,’ reminded Malik. ‘That was a lie, wasn’t it?’
‘It was not a lie,’ tried Panchenko desperately. Sweat was visibly leaking from the man now.
‘But you said nothing about the request for privacy.’
‘It did not seem important.’
‘Not important!’ exclaimed Malik, incredulous again. ‘It allowed the most vital witness in an ongoing inquiry to kill himself! They were probably the most important words he spoke!’
‘Probably,’ mumbled Panchenko, his voice difficult to hear.
‘Isn’t it regulations, having once taken a person into custody, that that person shall remain at all times under observation, until placed in a cell?’ persisted Malik relentlessly.
‘At that precise moment I did not consider I had taken Comrade Director Agayans into custody,’ avoided Panchenko, attempting to rally. ‘I was not formally in possession of any specific charge.’
‘Don’t be pedantic,’ rejected Malik impatiently.
‘That is the wording of the regulation,’ said Panchenko, achieving a small victory.
Choosing his words carefully, Malik said: ‘Having been dismissed by an arrested man, what did you then do? Remain at the corridor mouth? Or return to your squad?’
Panchenko’s face burned. ‘Returned to my squad.’
‘Was there any conversation between you?’
‘There was some discussion about how the passengers would be split between two cars,’ remembered Panchenko. ‘I said I would accompany the Comrade Director, with the driver and one back-up man and the other car should provide escort.’ Panchenko appeared to relax slightly, feet touching safer ground.
‘How long did that discussion take?’
‘Ten minutes,’ replied Panchenko at once.
‘Approximately ten? Or exactly ten?’
‘Exactly ten.’
‘How do you know it was ten minutes exactly?’
‘As I walked from the head of the corridor I checked my watch. It was automatic to look again the moment I became concerned about Agayans.’
‘You went to the bedroom without saying anything to the rest of the squad?’
Panchenko’s throat was moving. ‘I think I may have told them to stay where they were.’
‘How did you go to the bedroom?’ picked up Malik. ‘Did you walk? Or did you run?’
‘I walked quickly.’
‘You were wearing uniform?’
‘Of course,’ said Panchenko, almost truculently.
‘The regulation boots are comparatively heavy. Do you think Agayans might have heard you?’
‘I have no way of telling.’
‘You didn’t shout?’
‘No.’
‘Having respected the man’s wish for privacy, you didn’t call a warning that you were coming into his bedroom?’
‘No.’
‘Was the door closed or open?’
‘Ajar.’
‘Did you knock?’
‘No.’
‘Or shout, finally?’
‘No.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Pushed straight in.’
‘Privacy was completely unimportant now?’
‘I was alarmed. With good reason.’
‘Very good reason,’ sneered Malik. ‘So what did you see, in the bedroom that you finally entered?’
‘Agayans was on the far side of the room. The bed was between us. He had the gun to his head. As I went into the room he pulled the trigger.’
Malik sighed once more. He said: ‘How was he dressed? Still in his nightclothes? Or had he changed?’
‘Still in his nightclothes.’
‘So for ten minutes he had stood in his nightclothes holding a gun to his head. Why do you think it took him ten minutes to pull the trigger?’
Panchenko shrugged. ‘Indecision, perhaps: he was choosing whether or not to kill himself.’
‘There was a moment, as you entered, before he pulled the trigger?’
‘Seconds.’
‘Did you say anything, in those seconds?’
‘I shouted.’
‘At last!’ mocked Malik. ‘What did you shout?’
‘I think “Stop”. Maybe it was “Don’t do it”.’
‘You weren’t frightened he might turn the gun on you?’
‘It was against his head. It was obvious what he intended to do.’
‘But you couldn’t get to him?’
‘Not in time,’ said Panchenko. ‘The impact of the shot threw him against the wall, near the bedhead. His body overturned a side table. He fell half on and half off the bed.’
‘You checked he was dead?’
‘That wasn’t necessary. A lot of his head was gone. The squad came running. I told them to call an ambulance.’
‘Not a doctor?’
‘It was obviously too late for a doctor.’
‘What about the civilian militia?’
‘I am empowered to investigate and handle crimes affecting KGB personnel,’ said Panchenko, quoting regulations again.
‘In those first few moments in the apartment you told him the arrest was upon my orders?’ backtracked Malik.
‘Yes.’
‘And all he said was that he wanted to change?’ persisted Malik. ‘No protests? Not something like “This is a mistake”?’
‘No.’
Abruptly, trying further to off-balance the man, Malik demanded: ‘No insistence upon making a telephone call to see what it was all about?’
Panchenko blinked. ‘None at all.’
It hadn’t worked, Malik realized. Still hoping, he said: ‘What about names?’
‘Names?’
The chance was getting away. Malik said: ‘To what names did Agayans refer?’
‘I have told you everything about the conversation between Agayans and myself,’ insisted Panchenko. ‘There was no reference to anyone by name.’
‘No further reference to me?’
‘No.’
‘Or to anyone else?’
‘No one.’
He had not unsettled the other man as he imagined, thought Malik, disappointed. He needed time to analyse everything that had emerged. What more could there be from Panchenko? Malik said: ‘Do you consider from this meeting that your report was satisfactory?’
‘I did not understand the importance of several things.’
‘The arrest of a KGB division director! The suicide of a KGB division director! And you did not understand the importance of several things!’ The idea came as Malik spoke and he decided it was a good one.
‘I apologize with the utmost regret,’ said Panchenko.
Malik guessed that had been the most difficult concession of all for Panchenko to make. He picked up the report and tossed it contemptuously across the desk towards the security man and said: ‘I am rejecting this as totally unsatisfactory. And recording that rejection upon your file. I want another account covering all the facts that have emerged during this meeting. Within two hours.’
There was no longer redness in that burnished face. The colour now was an unnatural, white fury. Possibly worthwhile, Malik thought. Furious, the man might include in the revised file something that had not come out under questioning, which was the suddenly occurred reason for making him write it again. To maintain the anger, Malik said as dismissively as possible: ‘You may go now.’
It was actually the superficiality of Panchenko’s written account that had prompted Malik to conduct a personal interview without imagining so much would be disclosed. But what exactly had been disclosed? Malik demanded of himself objectively. Facts? Or merely impressions, formed from inconsistencies. It was inconsistent for a trained investigator – a strict observer of rules of procedure – to have begun so properly in establishing Agayans’ whereabouts and assembling his squad and then not bothering to time his arrival at the man’s apartment: and then to be so adamant about the length of time Agayans was alone in the bedroom. Which brought him to the biggest inconsistency of all. It was inconceivable for Panchenko to have allowed Agayans go to his bedroom unaccompanied: here Malik thought the explanation unacceptable to the extent of being a downright lie. And why had the man denied knowing the reason for the arrest? Malik distinctly remembered mentioning Afghanistan when he telephoned Gofkovskoye Shosse because he’d immediately considered it a mistake, ahead of the formulation of any specific charge. And what about Panchenko’s demeanour? At the start the man’s attitude had been one of arrogance, practically contempt. Unthinkable from someone so newly promoted, appearing before a joint First Chief Deputy. And then the change. From arrogance to sweated uncertainty. Uncertainty about what? The realization that his behaviour was wrong? Irritation at having his expertise questioned and so easily shown up to be wanting? Or apprehension, at something more? What was it that could be more? Too many questions lacking too many answers. So what was there? Only impressions that he was in danger of imagining to be facts: unsubstantiated, unpresentable, unprovable facts.